The Press., 1887-06-23

 IIlIE \ NH N IT. Ai... 5 "A fOfi. sPEEoH OF PRESENTATION AT HARTFORD.
 TUHspAYs JUNE 14TH, BY CHARLES DUD-
 LEY WARNER.
 In memorial day address at New Hav- en in 1881; the Hon. Richard D. Hubbard suggested the erection of a statue to Nath- an Hale in the state capitol. With the ex- ception of the monument in Coventry, no memorial of the young hero existed. The suggestion was acted on by the Hon. E. 5. Cleveland, who introduced a resolution ln the house of representatives in the session of 1883, approptiating money for the pur pose. The propriety of this was urged be- fore 8 committee of the legislature by Gov. Hubbard in speech of characteris- tic grace and eloqnence, seconded by the Hon. Henry c. Robinson and th9 Hon. Stephen w. Kellogg. The legislature ap- propriated the sum of $5, 900 for statue in bronze, and committee was appointed to procure 1t. They opened public com fpetition, and after considerable delay, dur ing which the commission was changed by death and by absence--indeed, four suc- cessive Governors, Hubbard, Waller, Har- rison and Lonnsbury have served on it. the work was awarded to Karl Gerhardt, 8 young sculptor, who began his career in this city. It was finished in clay and ac- cepted in October, 1886, put in plaster and immediately sent to the foundry of Melzar Mosman in Chicopee, Mass.
 1 To-day in all it's artistic perfection and beauty it stands here to be revealed to the public gaze. It is proper that the citizens of Connecticut should know how much of this result they owe to the intelligent zeal of Mr. Cleveland, the mover of the resolu- ton in the legislature, who i'll the commis- sion and before he became member of 1t has spared neither time nor effort to pro- cure memorial worthy of the hero and of the state. And am sure that speak the unanimous sentiments of the commission in the regret that the originator of this statue could not have seen the consumma- ton of his idea, and could not have crown ed it with the one thing lacking on this oc- casion, the silver words of eloquence we have always heard from his lips, that com pact nervous speech, the perfect union of strength and of grace for who so fitly as the lamented Hubbard could have DOT trayed the
 1 MORAL HEROISM OF THE MARTYR-SPY. | This is not portrait statue. There is no likeness of Nathan Hale extant. The only known miniature of his face, in the possession of the lady to whom he was be- trothed at the time of his death, disap- peared many years ago. The artist was obliged therefore to create an ideal figure, aided by a few fragmentary descriptions of Hale's personal appearance. His object has been to represent an American youth of the period, an American patriot and scholar, whose manly beauty and grace tradition loves to recall, 10 represent in face and in bearing the moral elevation of character that made him conspicuous among his fellows, and to show forth, if possible, the deed that made him immor- tai. For it is the deed and memorable last words we think of when we think of Hale. know that by one of the canons of art it is held that sculpture should rarely fix a momentary action but if this can be par doned in the Laocoon, where suffering could not otherwise be depicted to excite the sympathy of the spectator, surely it can be justified in this case when, as one may say, the immortality of the subject rests upon single act, upon phrase, upon the attitude. of the moment. For all the mans life, all his character, lowered and blOomed into immortal beauty in this one supreme moment of self-sacrifice. triumph defiance. The ladder on which the de- serted boy stood amidst the enemies of his country, when he uttered those last words, which all human annals do not parallel in simple patriotism, the ladder am sure rar up to heaven, and if the angels were not seen ascending and descending it in that gray morning, there stood the embodiment of American courage, ,unconquerable, Amer ican faith, invincible, American love ot country, unquenchable, new democratic manhood in the world, visible there for al | to fot1 of hIr the halo of victory, in the Revolutionary ldawn. Oh, my Lord Howe it seemed trihing incident to you and to your blood thound, Provost Marshal Cunningham, bu those winged last words were worth tel thousand men to the dropping patriot ar my. Oh Your Majesty, King George the Third, here was spirit, could you but have known 1t, that would cost you an empire here was an ignominious
 DEATH THAT WOULD GROW
 in the estimation of mankind increasing il nobility above the fading pageantry of the exit of kings.
 On the 21st of April, 1775, a messenger riding express, from Boston to New Yorl with the tidings of Lexington and Concord reached New London. The news created intense excitement. A public meeting was held in the courthouse at twilight, ,anC among the speakers who exhorted the peo pie to take up arms at once, was one, youth not yet 20 years of age, who said s'Let us march immediately, and never lay down our arms until we have obtained ou1 ndependence''-one of the first, perhaps the first, of the public declarations of the purpose of independence It was Nathan Hale, already person of some note in the colony, of family then not unknown anG destined ill various ways to distinction ir the republic. A kinsman of the same name lost his, life in the Louisburg fight He had been for year the preceptor oi the Union Grammar School at New Lon don. The morning after the meeting he was enrolled as volunteer and soor marched away with his company to Cam bridge
 Nathan Hale descended from Robert Hale, who settled in Charleston ln 1632, g scion of the Hales of Kent, England, was born in Coventry. Connecticut, on the 6th of June, 1775, the sixth child of Richard Hale and his wife Elizabeth Strong, per sons of strong intellect and the highest moral character, and Puritans of the strict est obseryances. Brought up in this at mosphere, in which duty and moral rec titude were the nnquestioned obligations